IMAGES OF THE

GREAT WAR
1914 1918
Have you forgotten yet?
Lawrence Dunn

1. First pattern for the badge of The 28th Battalion, County of London Regiment (Artists Rifles)
White metal, 4 x 3 cm. This first design shows the head of Minerva, the Goddess of the Arts, in front of the head of Mars, the God of War.
Designed by Queen Victorias medallist William Wyon R. A. The second pattern for the badge added the word Rifles.
When the Artists Corps was first formed in 1860 it recruited from only Painters, Sculptors, Engravers, Musicians, Architects and Actors. Eight members of
the regiment were awarded the V. C. in the Great War
Authors Collection.

CONTENTS
Chapter

Page

Preface ................................................................................................................................................. 8
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 10
Significant Events Of The Great War ............................................................................................... 15
Illustrators .......................................................................................................................................... 17
Lady Elizabeth Butler ........................................................................................................................ 28
For The Fallen Laurence Binyon .................................................................................................. 35
Sir David Muirhead Bone .................................................................................................................. 36
The Soldier Rupert Brooke ............................................................................................................. 43
Francis Edgar Dodd ........................................................................................................................... 44
To The Vanguard Beatrix Brice Miller........................................................................................... 49
Sir William Orpen .............................................................................................................................. 50
Whos For The Game? Jessie Pope ................................................................................................ 68
Charles Sargeant Jagger ..................................................................................................................... 69
In Flanders Fields John McCrae ..................................................................................................... 74
Christopher R.W. Nevinson ............................................................................................................... 75
Christ In Flanders Lucy Foster Whitemell ..................................................................................... 87
Paul Nash ........................................................................................................................................... 89
When You See The Millions Of The Mouthless Dead Charles Sorley ....................................... 100
John Nash......................................................................................................................................... 101
Rendezvous Alan Seeger .............................................................................................................. 107
Bruce Bairnsfather ........................................................................................................................... 108
Perhaps (To RAL) Vera Brittain................................................................................................... 117
Arthur Leonard Smith ...................................................................................................................... 118
To My Daughter Betty, The Gift Of God Thomas Kettle............................................................ 123
Wyndham Lewis .............................................................................................................................. 124
Sacrament Lady Margaret Sackville ............................................................................................. 129
David Bomberg ................................................................................................................................ 130
Break Of Day In The Trenches Isaac Rosenberg ......................................................................... 134
William Patrick Roberts................................................................................................................... 135
The General Siegfried Sassoon ..................................................................................................... 142
Colin Unwin Gill ............................................................................................................................. 143
Soliloquy Francis Ledwidge ......................................................................................................... 147
Harold Sandys Williamson .............................................................................................................. 148
Christian Duty Wilfred Owen ....................................................................................................... 154
Augustus Edwin John ...................................................................................................................... 155
The Dead Fox Hunter Robert Graves ........................................................................................... 159
John Singer Sargent ......................................................................................................................... 160
A Soldiers Declaration Siegfried Sassoon ................................................................................... 168
Henry Tonks .................................................................................................................................... 169
Of all who died in silence far away - Iris Tree ................................................................................ 176
Photographs of the Great War ......................................................................................................... 177

James Francis Hurley O.B.E. ........................................................................................................... 186

Olive Edis ........................................................................................................................................ 194
Dulce Et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen .......................................................................................... 197
Eric Henri Kennington ..................................................................................................................... 198
What Reward ? Winifred Mary Letts ........................................................................................... 203
George Clausen ................................................................................................................................ 204
Since They Have Died May Wedderburn Cannan ..................................................................... 207
Sir John Lavery ................................................................................................................................ 208
Anthem for Doomed Youth Wilfred Owen .................................................................................. 214
Austin Osman Spare ........................................................................................................................ 215
Reported Missing Anna Gordon Keown ...................................................................................... 219
Gilbert Rogers MBE ........................................................................................................................ 220
Strange Meeting Wilfred Owen .................................................................................................... 225
Adrian Keith Graham Hill ............................................................................................................... 227
Roundel Vera Brittain ................................................................................................................... 231
Sir Jacob Epstein.............................................................................................................................. 232
Lord, I Owe The a Death Alice Meynell.................................................................................... 235
Mark Gertler .................................................................................................................................... 236
A Girls Song Katharine Tynan .................................................................................................... 239
Joyce Dennys ................................................................................................................................... 240
Dulce Et Decorum? Elinor Jenkins............................................................................................... 246
Olive MudieCooke......................................................................................................................... 247
The Battle of the Swamps Muriel Elsie Graham .......................................................................... 250
Flora Lion ........................................................................................................................................ 251
Vlamertinghe Edmund Charles Blunden ...................................................................................... 253
Anna Airy ........................................................................................................................................ 254
To My Brother Vera Brittain ........................................................................................................ 258
Lucy Elizabeth Kemp-Welch........................................................................................................... 259
Nothing to Report May Herschel-Clarke ................................................................................... 267
Norah Neilson - Gray....................................................................................................................... 268
Reconciliation Siegfried Sassoon ................................................................................................. 272
Clare Atwood ................................................................................................................................... 273
An Incident Mary H. J. Henderson ............................................................................................... 277
Dorothy Josephine Coke .................................................................................................................. 278
Last Leave Eileen Newton ............................................................................................................ 280
Frederick Horseman Varley ............................................................................................................. 282
A Recruit from The Slums Emily Orr .......................................................................................... 285
Stanley Spencer................................................................................................................................ 286
Remembrance Day in The Dales Dorothy Ratcliffe ..................................................................... 293
David Michael Jones ........................................................................................................................ 294
No one cares less Than I Phillip Edward Thomas ........................................................................ 300
Robert Douglas Strachan ................................................................................................................. 301
Aftermath Siegfried Sassoon ........................................................................................................ 307
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 308
Last Post Carol Ann Duffy ........................................................................................................... 311
Bibliography .................................................................................................................................... 313

2.

Corporal Michael Davison,

24th (Service) Battalion the Northumberland Fusiliers, (Ist Tyneside Irish)

Born at 15 Scotland Street, Ryhope, Co. Durham, 1892. Michael was an underground putter at Ryhope Colliery when he enlisted on 15-12-1914. He was
wounded on the first day of the Battle of Albert, (now known as the Somme) 1st July 1916. Michael was killed in action on the first day of the Battle of Arras,
9th April 1917, and buried in Roclincourt Valley Cemetery.
Michael was the authors second cousin.
Authors Collection

PREFACE

Although I grew up during the Korean War, and my parents generation had lived and fought through the
Second World War, when I asked my family and relatives about that war, they would always remark how
the First World War, or the Great War as they called it, was far worse. In the close knit community where I
was brought up, many a house would have in pride of place, on, or above the mantelpiece an old sepia
photograph of a soldier of the Great War, who had not returned home. (ill 2)
At Remembrance Sunday ceremonies in the village each year, it was not the young men who had just
returned from the Korean War who were the venerated heroes, but the few remaining veterans of the Great
War. They took pride of place, both at the village war memorial, and at the head of the procession to the
village church for the service, and their silent pride and emotion was almost tangible. By the look in their
eyes, they were elsewhere. The war memorial itself had many more names from the Great War, 329
compared to 77 from the Second World War.
This book is my tribute to all those men and women who fought in that war to end wars, but most of all it
is about the war, as seen through the eyes of the artists who created the images. Several of these artists had
been soldiers themselves, and were influenced by what they saw and experienced during that war, not by
the art establishment, by politicians or by generals.
Of the 65 million men who fought on both sides in the Great War, nearly 9 million were killed, threequarters of a million from the British Isles, and 21 million were wounded or crippled for life, in vain
attempts to gain a few yards of shell-torn land. On the last day of the war, that eleventh hour, of the
eleventh day, of the eleventh month of 1918, over 10,000 men were killed or wounded, far more than on DDay 1944. Millions more died from their wounds, or committed suicide within a few years of the signing
of the Treaty of Versailles.

By 1929 the British Government had paid disability awards to 2.4 million men. When the Second World
War began in 1939, 204,200 British men were still receiving disability pensions from the government for
the following reasons:

Still suffering from shell shock:

25,000

Withered or useless limb:

90,000

Head injuries, unable to work:

15,000

Amputation of one or both arms:

3,600

Permanent deafness:

11,000

One or both legs amputated:

8,000

Partial blindness:

8,000

Disability from frostbite:

2,200

Total blindness:

2,000

Effects of gassing:

40,000
Courtesy David Roberts

INTRODUCTION

3. Britons Your Country Needs You

1914, by Alfred Leete, photo-lithograph and letterpress, 75 x 50 cm.
Imperial War Museum IWM PST2734

Above is the second of several versions of this most famous of all army recruiting posters, first issued in
September 1914. The design started life on the cover of the weekly magazine the London Opinion on 5th
September 1914. The Parliamentary Recruiting Committee immediately adopted this poster for
Kitcheners call for a new army of 100,000 volunteers.
Three days after the declaration of war on Germany at 11 pm on 4th August, Kitcheners appeal for a New
Army of 100,000 men was achieved within seventeen days. The patriotic rush to join the colours was such
that by the autumn the new army had increased to three new armies, called K1, K2 and K3; and by early
1915 had expanded into six, with the addition of K4, K5, and K6.
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4. Our Little Contemptibles1914

William Barns Wollen, c.1918, oil, 76.2 x 142.5 cm.
National Army Museum

Wollen was an illustrator for the Sphere, where this picture was first published. It shows pre-trench, open warfare at the beginning of the First
Battle of Ypres, October 1914. The soldiers using whatever little cover they could find.

Of all the events of the 20th century, the Great War of 1914-18, or the First World War, as it became
known in 1939, is the one most commemorated and analysed more than any other, in the form of novels,
plays, films, poems, music and paintings. Every battle had its horrific death toll, the worst being the first
day of the Battle of the Somme, the blackest day in the history of the British Army. One hundred and ten
thousand British soldiers attacked the German lines that day, and the British Army suffered 60,000
casualties, 20,000 killed, and the remainder wounded or missing. In the second week of the battle, the
British Army lost another ten thousand men every day. Millions more suffered for the rest of their lives
from what was then known as shell shock, which to-day we know as post-traumatic stress disorder.
The Western Front was a system of trench and barbed wire fortifications, which faced each other. It
stretched from Nieuport on the coast of Flanders, south and east for four hundred and sixty miles to the
Swiss border. The land between these two sets of trenches was known as No-mans-land, and it was here,
in that pock marked landscape of No-mans-land where most of the killing took place. That is the reason
why, with just three exceptions, I have concentrated on the work of those artists who experienced or
recorded the war on the Western Front. The poet Robert Graves, who fought in the war, wrote:
The Western Front was known as the sausage machine, because it was fed with live men at one end,
and churned out corpses at the other end and remained firmly screwed in place.

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When Britain entered the war on 4th August 1914, in England this was considered the nearest thing to a
Holy War since the Crusades of the Middle Ages. Its purpose to avenge the violation of Belgiums
neutrality by the cruel, barbaric Hun. It was also believed that this war would be a glorious, short,
successful war that would be all over by Christmas. As the regulars marched off to war, the special
reservists hurried to their depots to bring the battalions up to full strength. The daily rate of pay for an
infantry private was 1 old shilling, and 1 shilling and 2 pence for a private in the cavalry, which was lower
than any civilian earned, with the exception of a girl under eighteen years of age. The wages of private
soldiers was so low, that they were exempt from paying income tax.
It should also be remembered that most British soldiers who fought and died in the Great War did not have
the right of voting into office, those who sent them out to die, yet those same people told them in no
uncertain terms that it was their patriotic duty to die for King and Country.
The Territorial Force (to-days T.A.) although for home defence, voted en masse to fight overseas. The
greatest worry most Englishmen had at the time was that it would all be over, before they had a chance to
have a go at the Hun. An example of this mood was a student-soldier writing to his mother that August.
Be proud that you live in such times and in such a nation, and you have the privilege of sending
several of those you love into this glorious struggle.
The young man who wrote this was killed in the second month of the war. The poets Rupert Brook, Beatrix
Brice Miller, and Jessie Pope echoed the mood of those early days, in their poems The Soldier, To the
Vanguard, and Whos for the Game? The old world order ended as the four horsemen of the Apocalypse
rode across Europe, staining its fields red with the blood of the flower of Europes youth, who were killed
in their millions. In the four years of war, the new mass-produced machines of war, so praised by the
Futurists, caused such slaughter that this war became known as The Great War, and The War to End Wars.
Parts of Europe were devastated by the war, and by its end, four empires had ceased to exist, and a fifth,
the British Empire was in decline. All this because of the greed and fear of the leaders of those empires.

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On 4th August 1914 the world went mad and the Great War broke out, and along with thousands of others,
many artists joined the colours; one London regiment was called The Artists Rifles, which won eight
V.Cs. (ill.1).
Many artists, like the brothers John and Paul Nash, John Lavery and Charles Jagger joined this regiment.
Others like Stanley Spencer and Gilbert Rogers enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Wyndham
Lewis, William Roberts, Colin Gill and Adrian Hill joined artillery regiments, and David Bomberg enlisted
in the Royal Engineers, and from 1915 a small number of artists worked on camouflage. Of all the major
nations in this war Britain had by far the greatest number of Official War Artists.
Before researching this book I was aware of only two female war artists of this period, neither of whom is
to be found in British art history books; and discovered just nine others during subsequent research, all had
been written out of British art history. A full history of British artists of the Great War should include the
work of women artists, and the effect that war had on those left at home. The question has to be asked why
did the influential art critics and historians of the first half of the twentieth century allow this to happen?
In this personal study I will concentrate on the work of twenty-one war artists, with a cursory glimpse at
twenty others; and with only one exception I have concentrated on those artists whose work is about the
Western Front and the Home Front. I have also included a small number of photographs, and thirty-eight
poems of that war.
The book starts with a study of a most remarkable, and unconventional war artist, whose war paintings
bridge the gap between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Lady Butler was the first British woman
to become famous for painting battle scenes, the first British woman to paint scenes of the Great War, and
the only war artist to have two sons fighting in that war. Her reputation as a war artist was well established
by the 1890s. She is followed by the work of the first three official war artists, Bone, Dodd and Orpen.
Then the sculptures of Jagger, followed by the two greatest British painters of that war, Christopher
Nevinson and Paul Nash. The study concludes with the work of the stained glass artist, Robert Strachan.
Lawrence John Dunn

13

BEF GHQ

14

TIMELINE OF SIGNIFICANT EVENTS OF

THE GREAT WAR

1914

1915

1916

1917

28 July
4 August
4 August
7-16 August
23 August
26 - 30 August
18 October
11 November
29 October

January
19/20 January
19 February
1 March
10-12 March
22 April-25 May
25 April
7 May
31 May/1 June
25 September
12 October
8/9 January
9 February
21 February
16 December
31 May
7 June
1 July
18 November

1 February
12 March
6 April
9 April-27 May
16 April-8 May
17 April-30 June
7 June
31 July
10 November
20-29 November
17 December

Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia

German troops invaded Belgium
Britain declared war on Germany
British Expeditionary Force landed in France
Battle of Mons
Battle of Tannenberg

} First Battle of Ypres and beginning of trench warfare

Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers

British advance in Mesopotamia began

At night, first Zeppelin raids on England
Allied naval bombardment of Dardanelles began
Britain started blockade of Germany
Battle of Neuve Chapelle
Second Battle of Ypres
Allies invaded Gallipoli
The liner Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat off the Irish coast
First night Zeppelin raid on London
Battle of Loos
Execution of Nurse Edith Cavell
Final allied evacuation from Gallipoli
Conscription started in Britain, with the exception of Ireland

} Battle of Verdun
Battle of Jutland
Beginning of Arab revolt against Turks

} Battle of the Somme

Germany began unrestricted U-boat warfare

Russian Revolution began
U.S.A. declared war on Germany
Battle of Arras
Second Battle of Aisne
French Army Mutinies
Battle of Wytschaete / Messines Ridge

} Battle of Passchendaele (Third Ypres)

Battle of Cambrai
Armistice between Russian Soviets and Central Powers

15

1918

3 March
21 March

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Central Powers and Russia

Start of last German offensive on the Western Front

8 August

Final Allied advance on the Western Front began, known also as the Black Day
of the German Army
Armistice of Mudros ended the war in the Middle East
Austria-Hungary signed a general armistice
German Revolution began
Kaiser abdicated and fled to Holland
Armistice between Allies and Germany began 11 a.m.

30 October
3 November
8 November
9 November
11 November

1919

28 June

Peace Treaty between France and Germany signed at Versailles.

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ILLUSTRATORS

At first the only artists to be employed in the war effort were used for the purposes of propaganda, to
recruit men for the army, raise funds for the war and to sustain public support for it. Illustrators created
recruiting posters, (ill.3, 15, & 230) and illustrations for newspapers and magazines such as The Illustrated
London News, (ill. 10) The Graphic and the Sphere (ill. 9) these included The Old Contemptibles by
Wollen (ill.4), and The Manchester Regiment captures Givenchy (ill.16). On 12th August, 1914 The
London Illustrated News published the first of its illustrated weekly war magazine, called The Illustrated
War News, (ill. 5 & 6) which was a mixture of photographs and idealised (Boys Own) illustrations. Soon,
there was a proliferation of several similar periodicals, e.g. The Great War, The Standard History of the
All-European Conflict.

The text underneath the double spread

of pages 24 & 25 reads:
We have here the scene on the
battlefield of Mons at the critical
moment on Monday, August 24,
during the opening battle on the
frontier where the first Germans
encountered the British army.

5. Above: Front cover for

week five of The Illustrated
War News
9th September 1914
Authors Collection

17

7. Her Cross
Lawson Wood, first published in Ladys Pictorial 20-11-1915
The Mary Evans Picture Library

Owing to the falling back of the French line further to the east, the British had to hastily change front
under heavy fire and withdraw. Until then, throughout the fierce fighting the previous day and night, we
had more than held our own, repelling, it is stated, six massed attacks with terrific losses to the enemy.
Note the dark, dense heaps of fallen Germans to the right of the illustration; the masses of dead extend
beyond the ridge to the right. To the left we see the general wheel-back in progress, regiments retiring
in unbroken order, flanked by other infantry firing from shelter trenches in the foreground. The British
artillery (seen on the ridge to the left-centre) are covering the move. Two German aeroplanes are
visible in the distance, hovering to direct the German guns by raising and lowering discs. -

[Drawn by R. Caton Woodville from a sketch by Frederic Viliers.]

18

Under the Official War Artists scheme nearly 100 artists visited the various war zones, mainly on the
Western Front. Throughout the war there were many tear-jerker's, the two best known were Her Cross
which showed the effect of the war on the women left at home, (ill.7) and Good-bye My Old Friend,
(ill.14) which indulged animal lovers. These two images were both melodramatic and sentimental.

8.

The Stirrup-Charge of the Scots Greys and Highlanders at St. Quinton,

26 August 1914, one of the rear guard actions in the retreat from Mons.
Page 195 of Guerre 1914-1919, Publication Mensuelle Illustre.
Authors Collection

In the popular postcard of the time Her Cross, we see a bereaved woman weeping over the contents of a
letter. From the setting and her clothes we can see that she is from the middle or upper class, but we can
only guess her relationship with the dead soldier. Is she his mother, wife, lover or sister? The painting does
not tell us, but the war widows pension records do tell us that one in every eight widows died within one
year of having been notified of their husbands death.
Here the link between the loss on the battlefield and her loss at home is firmly emphasised by that ultimate
symbol of heroism, the Victoria Cross, awarded for bravery in the face of the enemy. The cross the
woman has to bear is the loss of her loved one. His cross, the Victoria Cross, enclosed with the letter that
announces the death of her hero, is no substitute for her lost love.

19

The message is reinforced by the dead officers sword and soft

cap on the polished table being touched by her outstretched right
hand.
During the war the Italian graphic artist Fortunino Matania (18811963) worked as an illustrator for the London Illustrated News,
The Sphere, and the French LIllustration. Although Matania and
Wollen were granted access to the Western Front several times,
they never saw battles or their immediate aftermath. Therefore
their war images cannot be called eye-witness accounts, of tell it
as it was and they were never Official War Artists. Nevertheless
they are probably the best-known examples of unofficial war
illustrators.

9.

Cover of a special issue of

The Graphic, 1914
Mary Evans Picture Library

The war might well have been over by Christmas if a remarkable and spontaneous three day Christmas
truce in 1914, in parts of Flanders, had spread and remained permanent, but the British High Command
was furious that it was happening, and ordered the British artillery to open fire on No-mans-land, where
the fraternisation was taking place, forcing the men to run back to their own trenches for cover.
Fraternisation took place between the opposing armies. It began on Christmas Eve with the German
soldiers singing the Christmas carol Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht (Silent Night Holy Night), and the British
troops replied with an English carol. Then there were shouts from the Germans of Come over here and
later of You come half-way I come half-way. At first there was understandable suspicion that it was a
trick, but eventually the Germans climbed out of their trenches, unarmed and walked into no-mans land,
the British soldiers then did the same. There was hand shaking and talking, (many Germans spoke
English), then they buried their dead.

20

Afterwards they exchanged gifts, shared food, photographs were taken, more carol singing, and a football
match was played. The truce spread approximately 15 kilometres north of Armentires, and 20 kilometres
south of that town. News of the truce first broke in America, for the English press boycotted the event.
Then it was front page news in England too, first in the Daily Sketch on 6 January 1915, then in several
other British papers two days later. Some British officers were disciplined for taking part in the Christmas
Truce. This celebration of the human spirit, and the hopes it manifested that day was recorded in the final
verse of A Carol from Flanders by the Scottish war poet, Frederick Niven.
O ye who read this truthful rime
From Flanders, kneel and say:
God speed the time when every day
Shall be as Christmas Day.

The Light of Peace in the Trenches on Christmas

Eve A German soldier opens the spontaneous truce by approaching
10.

the British lines with a small Christmas tree. (original caption)

9-1-1915
. Mary Evans Picture Library

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11. A Memory of a Christmas 1914

Look at this blokes buttons, arry, I should recone as a
maid to dress em. from Bullet and Billets, B. Bairnsfather.
1916
Authors collection

12.

From the London Illustrated News 9th January 1915. Drawing by A. C. Michael.

The caption reads: British and German soldiers arm-in-arm and exchanging headgear: A Christmas Truce between opposing trenches. Saxons and
Anglo-Saxons fraternising on the field of battle at the season of peace and goodwill. Officers and men from the German and British trenches meet and
greet one another - one German officer photographing a group of foes and friends together.
. Mary Evans Picture Library

The Official War Diaries of the 1st Battalion the Worcestershire Regiment recorded:
Dec 25th (Christmas day) Marched back to B lines trench about 5 pm No firing during relief
at all. The 2nd Northamptonshires had arranged an unofficial armistice with the Germans
till 12 midnight, which we also kept. There was a certain amount of shouting remarks between
the Germans and ourselves, and the Germans sang English and German songs most of the
night which were applauded by our men. In spite of the armistice our sentries were kept on
alert as much as usual. Dec 26th Practically no firing on either side all day. Our artillery
fired a few rounds during the morning.
Unit War Diaries 1914-1922 W0 95/1723/1, The National Archives, Kew Surrey.

Good-bye My Old Friend was the original title of what became known as Good-bye old Man,
(ill. 14) and was one of a series of mans best friend war pictures, which became one of the most
popular images of the war. I was fascinated by this picture, when, as a teenager, I first saw a
monochrome print of it in the Railway Inn public house, Station Road in my village.

22

13.

British and German Officers together in No-mans-land, in the Bridoux-Rouge Banc sector

(far

right) Second Lieutenant, The Hon. Harold B. Robson and a fellow officer of the Northumberland Hussars, 7th Division.
Photographed by another officer of that Regiment
I.W.M. Q50721

A five minute walk from where Michael Davison lived, and a mile and a half from my fathers
home in Gibson Terrace. It shows a soldier, probably the horses rider, saying good-bye to the
dying horse, while giving it his last drop of water and an embrace with enemy shells falling ever
closer. In the background an officer calls to the stricken gunner to leave the horse and re-join his
field battery. The bond between a soldier and his horse was so strong, they were inseparable.
This picture was first published in The Sphere, followed by a number of other publications,
including a poster for an American charity which read: Help the Horse to Save the Soldier. It may
have been a coincidence that that print was in the public house, but in 1914 there were two
Territorial Force batteries of the Royal Garrison Artillery, two miles to the south at Seaham
Harbour, and another battery, three miles north at Sunderland.
In this war posters were used for the first time on a massive scale not only as a form of recruitment,
but for propaganda purposes, and they quickly became most sophisticated. Although he was never
an Official War Artist, the mainly self taught Anglo-Welsh artist and illustrator Frank Brangwyn
designed over eighty posters during the Great War. All of his designs have a sophistication, and the
style of a fine artist, compared to those of the many commercial artists, see illustration 15, as
opposed to illustrations 3 & 10. As the government was discontented with the quite unrealistic
illustrations, as well as the dreary and false photographs which were being produced, a Ministry of
Propaganda was established in September 1914.

23

14. Goodbye My Old Friend by Fortunino Matania,

Although this picture started life as an illustration for The Tatler and Sphere, on 24-6-1916, it was also
used in a poster for an American charity, and became known as Good-bye, Old Man
Mary Evans Picture Library

Charles Masterman was appointed Director of Propaganda, with a brief to supply war propaganda
for both home and abroad. The idea of employing trained artists as official war artists originated
with Masterman. By1916 it was felt that pictures were needed to enliven the propaganda text, and
to create memorable images.
The use of cartoonists and illustrators was mooted, and Bruce Bairnsfathers immortal cartoon
character Old Bill was by then well known and loved. (ills. 92 to 101). However, Masterman was
determined that trained artists should be used. So the idea of the Official War Artists scheme
eventually came into operation in 1916, and from February 1917 they came under the control of the
Department of Information, with John Buchan at its head. Buchan made no claims to be
knowledgeable about art, but supported all of Mastermans proposals.

24

15.

At Neuve Chapelle Your Friends Need You Be a Man.

Frank Brangwyn 1915 Auto-Lithograph, 101 x 63 cm.
Recruiting poster.
By kind permission of David Brangwyn

There were ninety-one official war artists in total, and in July 1916 Muirhead Bone became the first,
with the honorary rank of Second Lieutenant in the army. Not all official war artists were given
honorary commissions, but most were eyewitnesses to battles or their immediate aftermath. There
were also soldier artists whose work was bought by various government departments. Of all the war
artists, official or otherwise, it was those who had taken part in the fighting in the trenches on the
Western Front, or were eye witnesses to the fighting, who produced the most powerful images of
the slaughter and destruction of that war.

25